This Cultural Life

One of the world’s most successful living choreographers, Sir Matthew Bourne shook up classical ballet in the mid 1990s with his ground-breaking company Adventures In Motion Pictures. His breakthrough production, a radical new version The Nutcracker, was followed by an all-male Swan Lake that, after initial controversy in the press, became a massive critical and commercial hit. Since then he’s continued to popularise classical dance with a succession of innovative productions, often drawing inspiration from movies or literature. He’s had hits with the Red Shoes, Edward Scissorhands, Dorian Gray and Lord Of the Flies, and has won Olivier and Tony Awards. Matthew Bourne was knighted in 2016 for services to dance. In This Cultural Life he talks about how his love of classic films musicals started with seeing The Sound of Music as a young boy, and falling in love with Julie Andrews. He recalls his teenage years as one of London’s top autograph hunters meeting the likes of Gene Kelly, Charlie Chaplin and his hero Fred Astaire. He also explains how he was a relative latecomer to ballet and only saw his first ballet - a Sadler's Wells production of Swan Lake - at the age of 18. Matthew Bourne also chooses Powell and Pressburger’s 1948 film The Red Shoes as one of his formative influences. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Renowned for tackling big themes on stage, Lucy Prebble made her name as a playwright in her mid-twenties when she wrote the hugely successful Enron. The play, which premiered in 2009 and explored the collapse of the American energy corporation eight years earlier, transferred to the West End and also played on Broadway. In 2019 she premiered A Very Expensive Poison which dramatized the assassination in London of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. Lucy Prebble has also written for television, she devised and wrote the black comedy series I Hate Suzie with its star Billie Piper. She was also one of the writers of the Emmy, Golden Globes and BAFTA winning Succession, about the ageing media mogul deciding if and how to hand control of his corporate empire to his children. In conversation with John Wilson, Lucy recalls how an early job as an assistant to Nicholas Hytner in his first year as Director of the National Theatre helped her to begin her career as a writer. She reveals how Billy Bragg's song Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards is a continued inspiration in her work as a playwright and the influence that Bob Fosse’s 1979 film All That Jazz had on her TV series I Hate Suzie. She also discusses being part of the team that wrote the hit TV series Succession and what effect the experience has had on her and her work. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Author, poet and performer Michael Rosen is one of Britain’s best loved and most prolific children’s writers, having published hundreds of books over nearly fifty years, including his much-loved We’re Going On Bear Hunt, the story of an exciting family outing, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury. As a broadcaster he is well known to Radio 4 listeners as the host of Word of Mouth. He was appointed as Children’s Laureate in 2007 and was awarded the PEN Pinter Prize in 2023, the citation noting his “ability to address the most serious matters of life in a spirit of joy, humour and hope”. In conversation with John Wilson, Michael recalls the early influence of his parents, who were both active members of the British Communist Party, and the many books that lined the walls of the Rosen family home. He chooses, as a key cultural inspiration, a reproduction of a 16th century painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder called Netherlandish Proverbs. Depicting ordinary people in various comic situations which represented well-known proverbs of the day, it captured the imagination of young Michael and his friends. He reveals how he started writing his own poetry in response to works by Gerald Manley Hopkins and DH Laurence whilst at school, and remembers how We’re Going On A Bear Hunt was inspired by various folk tales from around the world. Michael also discusses the impact on his work of the death of his son Eddie at the age of 18 in 1999, and in discovering more about the fate of Jewish family members during the Holocaust. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Angélique Kidjo, often described as "the queen of African music", has recorded fifteen albums, worked with a diverse array of musical collaborators from Burna Boy and Alcia Keys to Philip Glass and Peter Gabriel, and won five Grammy Awards. In 2023 she was the recipient of the Polar Prize, regarded as one of the world’s prestigious musical awards. Born under French colonial rule in 1960 in Dahomey, Angelique first started singing professionally as a teenager. Amid violent political upheavals in the 1980s, she fled her country, which had been renamed Benin, and became an exile in Paris. It was there that she was discovered by legendary Island Record boss Chris Blackwell, who signed her to his label and launched her three decade career. Angélique Kidjo tells John Wilson about the early influence of her mother who ran a musical theatre company in her hometown, and encouraged her to first take to the stage at the age of six. Becoming a professional singer in her teens, she recalls how she was inspired by African musicians including Fela Kuti, Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela. She chooses the American composer Philip Glass as another huge influence, having worked with him on Symphony 12, Glass’s reinterpretation of David Bowie’s Lodger album. Angélique also discusses her work with David Byrne and why she choose to record her own version of Remain In Light, the 1980 album by Byrne’s band Talking Heads. Producer: Edwina Pitman

One of the world’s most acclaimed ceramicists, Edmund de Waal is renowned for simple, hand-made porcelain pots and bowls which are usually displayed in meticulously arranged groups. His work has been shown in museums and galleries including the V&A, the British Museum, the Frick in New York, and at the Venice Biennale. In 2010 Edmund de Waal became widely known as a bestselling author, after the publication of his family memoir The Hare With Amber Eyes which retraced his Jewish European heritage. A dramatic and tragic story about art, exile and survival, it led him on a journey from Tokyo to Odessa via 19th century Paris and Nazi occupied Vienna. On This Cultural Life, Edmund de Waal tells John Wilson about being taken to a pottery class at the age of five by his father, an Anglican cleric who worked at Lincoln Cathedral. He immediately fell in love with the process of moulding wet clay into vessels and was determined to become a potter. After leaving school he spent five months in Japan studying the ancient traditions of pottery with various master ceramicists. He remembers how a visit to the Ryoan-ji Temple in Kyoto had a huge impact on his understanding of space, contemplation and spirituality. During his first visit to Japan he also met his great uncle Ignatius Ephrussi from whom Edmund first learned about his European Jewish heritage, his family’s exile from Vienna in the face of Nazi terror, and the collection of small Japanese figurines, known as netsuke, whose story was told in The Hare With Amber Eyes. Edmund chooses the ceramicist Lucie Rie, another Viennese exile in London, as a major influence on his practise. He describes his working routine in the ceramics studio, and how his pots are often made in response to poetry, citing the work of Romanian-born Paul Celan an American poet Emily Dickinson as particular influences. Producer: Edwina Pitman

French Moroccan author Leïla Slimani won critical acclaim and a reputation as an author of bold & brutal fiction with her first two novels. Adele is about a bourgeoise Parisian wife and mother who lives a sexually promiscuous secret life. In Lullaby, a nanny kills the children she’s employed to care for, a story currently being adapted as a drama series starring Nicole Kidman. Leïla has also written the first two in a planned trilogy of novels based on her own family history, and has published short stories and non-fiction. She has won France’s most prestigious literary award the Prix Goncourt, and in 2017 she was appointed as President Macron’s personal representative to Francophone countries. For This Cultural Life, Leïla Slimani tells John Wilson about her childhood in Rabat, the daughter of a prominent Moroccan economist and politician. She reveals how she was motivated to write novels after the death of her father who had been convicted of financial fraud and imprisoned, but who was posthumously cleared of any wrongdoing. She chooses her French-born maternal grandmother, who told stories to Leïla , as a formative influence on her creative imagination from a young age. Having covered the Arab Spring uprisings in Morocco and Tunisia as a journalist for Jeune Afrique magazine, Leïla discusses how news stories have inspired much of her work. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Writer and broadcaster Melvyn Bragg is a prolific and bestselling author, having written 22 novels, many set in the Cumbrian communities in which he grew up. He has also written 18 works of historical non-fiction and biographies. As host and editor of ITV’s South Bank Show for nearly 35 years, presenter dozens of documentaries, and Radio 4 series including Start The Week and In Our Time he is synonymous with arts broadcasting in the UK. He was ennobled in 1998, taking his seat in the House of Lords as Baron Bragg of Wigton in Cumbria. In conversation with John Wilson, Melvyn Bragg recalls his working class childhood and how the local library offered him access to literature at a young age. A voracious reader and talented student, Melvyn was inspired by two teachers at his grammar school, and won a scholarship to Oxford University. It was there that he met his first wife Lisa Roche, who he chooses as a major influence having encouraged Melvyn to pursue his creativity. He discusses the grief and depression he suffered after Lisa’s suicide ten years into their marriage. Winning a place on a BBC production trainee scheme in 1961 was another major turning point in his cultural life, working alongside writers including Irish poet Louis MacNeice at the very start of his six decade career in arts broadcasting. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Sally Potter is a ground-breaking film-maker, best known for her bold 1992 adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando. Starring Tilda Swinton, it was nominated for two Academy Awards and won more than 25 international film prizes. With her 1983 debut feature The Gold Diggers, which starred Julie Christie, Sally Potter led an all-female cast and crew, establishing herself as a trailblazing figure within independent cinema. She is renowned for her radical and experimental approach to film-making. Her 2004 love story Yes was scripted entirely in iambic pentameter; Rage in 2009, set backstage at a fashion show and starring Jude Law, Steve Buscemi and Judi Dench, became the world’s first movie to premier directly on mobile phones. A multitasking filmmaker, Sally Potter’s screen credits also include actor, editor, choreographer and composer. She has written and directed nine feature films including The Party and The Roads Not Taken. Sally Potter tells John Wilson about her upbringing in a liberal, creative household in London. She recalls how she was given a 8mm cine camera by the artist Sandy Daley when she was 14, the start of her fascination with film-making. After learning more about the craft of cinematography, processing and editing film at the London Film Cooperative, she studied dance and choreography at The Place, an experience that later inspired her 1997 film the Tango Lesson. Having recently released an album of songs, she talks about the creative impulse that inspired them. She also discusses reading Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and the struggle to make her screen adaptation in the face of warnings from film producers that the book was ‘unfilmable’. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Actor, writer, comedian and broadcaster Stephen Fry first made his name as a comic performer as a Cambridge University undergraduate with the Footlights company. He went on to forge a television partnership with his university friend Hugh Laurie on the sketch show A Bit Of Fry and Laurie and later the comic drama series Jeeves and Wooster, adapted from the PG Wodehouse stories. Among many stage and screen roles, Stephen Fry starred as Oscar Wilde in the 1997 film Wilde, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe. He received a Tony Award nomination for playing Malvolio in Twelfth Night on Broadway, and was Lord Melchett over several generations of Blackadder. He’s written five novels and three volumes of autobiography, and has presented numerous documentaries. A familiar face on British television screens, he has hosted award ceremonies and panel shows including the long-running quiz series QI. For This Cultural Life, Stephen tells John Wilson about how he first read the Wodehouse story Very Good, Jeeves when he was 10 years old and was spellbound by the comic language. He says that seeing a film adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play The Importance Of Being Earnest led him to read all of Wilde's works, beginning a lifelong obsession with the playwright. He reveals how being an avid fan of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novels led to his expulsion from school. He also chooses E.M. Forster's 1910 novel Howard's End as a huge influence, with its central theme of 'only connect' helping him make sense of his own emotional turbulence and intellectual ambitions. He also talks about spending time in prison on remand for credit card fraud, and being diagnosed as bi-polar after prolonged struggles with his mental health. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Ian McEwan made his name in the 1970s with short stories and slim novels that explored the darker aspects of human nature. He won the Booker Prize in 1998 with his novel Amsterdam, and its follow up Atonement, was adapted as a film and nominated for several Academy Awards. McEwan primarily writes psychological dramas about relationships, but often within a global context of issues including climate change, the Iraq War and A.I. His most recent novel Lessons is his most directly autobiographical, drawing on aspects of his childhood and travels as a young man. In conversation with John Wilson, the author recalls early memories of Libya, where his Army officer father was posted during the Suez Crisis of 1952. He says he first realised the power of poetry, especially that of Wordsworth and TS Eliot, through an English teacher at the state-funded boarding school he attended in Suffolk. He chooses, as one of his formative experiences, meeting the novelist Martin Amis and joumalist Christopher Hitchens, both of whom became lifelong friends. Other major turning points were witnessing the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, as he researched a book about the Cold War, and time spent in an operating theatre watching neurosurgeon Neil Kitchen in preparation for his 2005 novel Saturday whose protagonist is a leading brain surgeon. Producer: Edwina Pitman